


made of most beautiful things

by TatlBJifik



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 02:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17458649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TatlBJifik/pseuds/TatlBJifik
Summary: After an encounter in the woods with a series of strange flashing lights and a feeling in his gut screaming ‘get out NOW’, Keith drags his loving but exasperated and skeptical boyfriend into the forest to help him track down the area emanating this strange, tangible energy. There, they will encounter something far more outlandish than aliens- love (and also fairies).





	made of most beautiful things

**Author's Note:**

> This will be an on-going gift-fic for Supes and it is very late and I am very sorry!
> 
> "...Gently Suspending, With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending, Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things"  
> \- Charles Ede

Keith’s hike that morning had started fairly normal. Excited for brand new terrain and a day to unwind from the city, Keith had packed his provisions, kissed the top of Lance’s head where it just peaked out from the covers, and headed out before dawn. It was a 45 minute drive to the thickly wooded forest, comfortably distant from street lights and mid-day traffic. Compass, pack, and map in hand he had set out. The rising sun shined through the leaves of the trees, casting a lacework of light across the forest floor. Everything was peaceful, at ease with the beginning of the day.

As Keith got further and further away from the roads and known routes, the trees got thicker, the shadows deepening. The noise of forest animals grew quieter, quieter, until they stopped altogether. Keith had never heard this kind of quiet before. The sound of his breaths and his heart seemed to echo in his ears. His footfalls, normally quiet and careful, sounded thundering, destructive. He had never felt the urge to run in the other direction so strongly before. Not one to be cowed by his own fear so easily he pressed forward cautiously. That’s when he saw it- quick flits of light out of the corner of his eye.

He turned quickly, but rather than disappear as soon as he looked at them like he expected, the lights hovered for a moment, like they were waiting for him. He watched them dance further into the forest. He followed a few steps forward, but stopped. He could hear Lance in his head, all the talks they’d had about being reckless. He was fairly certain this qualified as reckless. But for a reason he couldn’t put his finger on, he wanted…no, he needed to follow that light. Something in him tugged toward the lights, whispered at the back of his mind to follow.  
Just as he had nearly made up his mind to follow for a few moments, something brushed his shoulder, a hand or a finger, a whisp of a touch and a mischievous echo of a laugh floated in the air. Keith around sharply in the direction of the touch and the fading laughter but nothing was there. There was nothing to see but the unnatural dark and nothing to hear but the unnatural quiet and the distant laugh that sounded as quiet as a memory.

\--------------------------

“- and now we’ve been traipsing around the woods for two and a half hours and there’s nothing happening, Keith! No magic lights or talking animals or anything! My trail mix is going to run out soon you know, and then there’ll be just a bunch of those nasty-ass rye chips! And when that happens, you and your Ancient Aliens episodes clogging up the DVR and your funky forest vibes and your flashing lights are all going to be sorry. We still have to walk all the way BACK, you know.”

“I’m telling you Lance, there’s something weird about this forest. When we find it, you’ll see what I was talking about.” Keith insisted for the hundredth time, barely listening to himself anymore, too preoccupied with trying to find that feeling again, that odd tug in the pit of his stomach that blares ‘TURN BACK NOW!’

“Whatever.” Lance continued, “History channel, my ass. Aliens didn’t build the pyramids, Keith. Slave labor did.”

“Shhh! Quiet for a sec. Just listen.” Keith had gone still, looking up toward the branches. Lance huffed but stopped talking, trying to hear what sound his boyfriend could be talking about, but try as he might the only thing Lance could hear was his own rustling as he jostled his pack.

He glanced over at Keith, who had come home late that morning from his hike with an urgent plea for Lance to go back to the woods with him and an expression of anxiety and uncertainty that surprised Lance. At first he had been worried, thinking that whatever Keith had seen in the forest must have been something terrible to shake him up so much. Upon learning during the drive out of the city that Keith hadn’t really seen anything but some flashy lights however, he had stopped worrying about the possibility of finding bodies hidden in shallow graves by a serial killer or something equally horrendous, and started thinking that his boyfriend really should have been dragging Pidge out this early on a Sunday if all they were doing was alien hunting.

But watching his boyfriend grow steadily more anxious as they travelled deeper into the forest, that worry was sneaking back in. Whether it had been real or not, Keith had seen something that had really upset him, and that was pretty scary on its own. Shrugging, hoping this trip would be over soon at their lack of evidence, he responded,

“I don’t hear anything, Keith.”

Keith nodded, eyes alert, darting around them quickly. “Exactly. No birds, nothing scurrying around. There’s no animals here. Something’s warding them off. We’re on the right track. This way.”

Leading them further into the shadows, Lance followed apprehensively. Keith had an unfortunately spooky point. It had been awful quiet the last few minutes, and it seemed to be getting darker by the minute.

“Okay, you’re right. It’s weird in here. Let’s go.” Lance urged, tugging Keith’s arm. Keith pulled free of his hold, taking his hand in turn.

“We can’t go back yet, we’re nearly back to where I was. C’mon, just a little further.”

“No way dude, it’s fucking creepy in here, let’s go! This way!”

“Lance, that’s the wrong way! And don’t yank at my pack like that!”

“Well stop doing this horror-movie bullshit and let’s get out of here before some axe murderer pops up from behind a- what the fuck was that?”

Both of them immediately stopped their squabbling, turning toward the direction Lance is pointing at. After a solid minute of stillness, Keith whispered,

“What did you see?”

Lance responded just as quietly.

“Lights. Like…almost like fireflies flashing on and off- there they go again, look!”

After a moment of hesitation, they both moved forward, following the yellow-orange glow that flickered in and out of view, almost taunting them. Lance couldn’t understand what on Earth could make him want to follow some creepy mystery lights into the middle of the dark woods, but for some reason he did. Keith seemed to be on the same page, so Lance stepped beside him rather than cower behind, squeezing his hand tight.

They broke through a treeline so suddenly they nearly stumbled forward. There was no change in light from above, the clearing just as oddly dark as the rest of the area. The air did not stir, but sat crackling with energy, raising every hair on the backs of both their necks. The pine needles and leaves covering the forest floor outside of the circle was absent here, a rich carpet of moss covering the ground instead, lush and springy. A small pond of crystalline water rested toward the back of the circle, the pool as still as a mirror’s surface. Sitting dead center of the circle was a large tree stump, worn smooth, table-top flat, and ringed around the base with mushrooms.

The light multiplied and began flickering all around the space, seeming to reflect off of every leaf, glimmering across the forest floor, glistening over the pool of water, shining from the tops of each mushroom.

“Why do you come here, humans?” A voice seemed to sound from above, from below, bouncing off the trees like walls and reverberating back to the two. After a long and tense silence, Lance found his voice and cleared his throat before speaking,

“We…we got lost, we’re just gonna be going now!”

“Humans are terrible liars. You have entered the faerie Grove. You must place an offering into the Ring if you wish for safe passage from this place. Refusal will not only muddy your path and obstruct your view, but shall henceforth curse you with the wrath of the faerie scorned and all chaos that entails.” The voice boomed around the clearing. Keith snatched Lance’s bag of trail-mix out of his hands, ignoring Lance’s whisper-yelled “hey!” of protest.

“Will this suffice, oh uhhh… Great One?”

A deep sigh blew through the Grove, the branches rustling with the breeze. “Ugh, really? There’s barely anything but the rye chips left. You’re lucky that was a joke. In truth, coming to this Grove was no accident of fate for either of you. I brought the both of you here.”

Keith looked at Lance incredulously, who could only shrug back at him. Keith, feeling more and more frustrated with the mystery of it all, finally called out to the voice angrily.

“Enough with the light-show!” he yelled. “Show yourself! Why did you want us here? Who are you?”

The lights all gathered themselves, centering into the shape of a being, illuminated in the same yellow-golden light that drew them here. As the glow dimmed, the features became clear- a creature that looked nearly human stood before them. His face was square and sharper at the corners and edges. He was large-framed, broad-bellied and broad-shouldered. His wings fluttered behind him, opalescent and leaf-shaped, his dark skin, dark eyes, and long dark hair lit up brilliantly in gold light. The air around the being was charged with an ancient and powerful energy. He grinned at the pair of humans before him.

“You may call me Hunk. You two are my soulmates.”


End file.
